When the Apollo 8 crew read from Genesis on Christmas Eve some people complained that, as a government-funded institution, NASA should not be promoting religion. He said, Just don't talk about it when you are on the moon. So a couple of weeks before we blasted off I thought it would be a good idea if I told the guy in charge of the flight crew what I was going to do.
Every little souvenir, every flag or coin we carried was counted and documented and carefully stored in the spacecraft. Talk about that incident-and whether you would do it again today. You, controversially, celebrated Communion on the moon with wine and bread you had “smuggled” aboard the spaceship. And that’s why I said those words: the magnificence of the achievement and the desolation of where we were. It was the most desolate thing I could ever think of. No oxygen, no life, just the lunar surface that hasn't changed for thousands of years-and the blackness of the sky. But when I looked around I saw the most desolate sight imaginable. The magnificence of our achievement for humanity was that we were there. Throughout history we've dreamed of the moon, and wondered if people would ever go there. So I just put together words that came to mind to represent the magnificence of the human achievement. If I had been the first to go down, I would've consulted philosophers or historians to help me come up with the right thing to say. Then I come down and look around and nothing was prepared. The famous phrase you used to describe the moon was “magnificent desolation.” Can you talk about that?Īs the commander of the flight, Neil was going to be the one who first stepped onto the moon and said something historic, which he did. But that doesn't stop the story from spreading among people who are looking for anything that they can call a cover-up or a UFO. The UFO people back in the United States became very angry with me-for not telling them first! We knew it wasn't a UFO. We assumed it was public knowledge and during an interview with the BBC I went through the whole story. Neil explained it was because we saw a light, which was obviously the panels going out. Neil said, Guys, you were probably wondering why we asked you how far away the third stage rocket is. Then, when we were in quarantine after returning to Earth, the higher management came in to talk to us from behind a window. From my rendezvous experience I knew that there were four objects out there, which were the panels that sprung outward away from the rocket to expose the lander. But we wanted to make an observation, so we innocently asked, Ground control, how far away is the upper stage rocket? They came back and said it's about 6,000 miles away. We didn't want to discuss anything that would make people think, Oh, Houston, there's a light following us to the moon! That would shake up a lot of people back on Earth. I looked out and saw a light moving in relation to the stars. I'm surprised you're saying we saw a UFO and then covered it up. What is your view today about the UFO you thought you might have seen? On the way to the moon, a strange incident occurred that was kept secret by NASA for many years. The sky was black as could be, and the horizon was so well defined as it curved many miles away from us into space. We are a very small part of the solar system and the whole universe. Once we were on the surface of the moon we could look back and see the Earth, a little blue dot in the sky. It certainly didn't make me feel lonely, except to realise that we were as far away as people had ever been. There’s an amazing moment in your book when you look back at Earth from the moon and realise that of all the billions of people on Earth-living and dead-you, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins are the only three not there. Speaking from Philadelphia during a stop on his book tour, he explains why being called “the second man to walk on the moon” bothers him, how stories about him seeing a UFO on the way to the moon are groundless, and why he is convinced that the United States will land a man on Mars within two decades. But today, at the ripe old age of 86, he is still dreaming big. He himself battled depression and alcoholism. But as he reveals in No Dream Is Too High: Life Lessons From a Man Who Walked on the Moon , published by National Geographic, his life has had its challenges and tragedy. Everywhere he goes, people adore and admire him. He’s even appeared on 30 Rock, The Simpsons , and in a Norwegian music video. The Apollo 11 astronaut walked on the moon and took the first selfie in space. Buzz Aldrin is a living legend: a bona fide American hero and tireless public servant.